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Montana Bioscience Cluster Initiative

December 12, 2019 /

MATR Sponsor (view all)

Bear Paw Development Corporation is a private non-profit organization created for the purpose of administering programs to help improve regional economic conditions in Hill, Blaine, Liberty, Chouteau and Phillips Counties and the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy's Indian Reservations.

Expesicor: Innovating Neuroscience

Expesicor is a small bioscience company headquartered in Kalispell with research facilities in Missoula. Dr. Braxton Norwood, Expesicor’s CEO, and David Booth, COO, are passionate about discovering treatments for epilepsy and other neurodegenerative disorders. They’re also passionate about Montana.

Braxton says he co-founded the company after doing post-doctoral research in Germany. “I liked the idea of starting a company and saw opportunity in the field. Doing things the same way for a long time has prevented innovation in the pharmaceutical industry,” Braxton said. He also cited his fascination with the brain as a motivation for founding Expesicor. “Nobody actually knows what a seizure really is or why they happen. There’s a lot of opportunity to make progress toward understanding basic things, and also positively impact millions of people living with currently uncurable neurological disorders.”

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Highlight: Bioscience in Missoula

NUMBER OF JOBS

% CHANGE (2017-2018)

916

5% above National average (2019)

+1.4%

Nation: +5.6%

Montana Bioscience Cluster Initiative

Last April, the Montana Technology Enterprise Center (MonTEC) was one of seven entities nationwide to be awarded an innovation cluster development contract by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Montana Bioscience Cluster Initiative seeks to support expansion of the bioscience industry and includes stakeholders from the private sector, University of Montana, Missoula Economic Partnership, Montana Bioscience Alliance, Montana World Trade Center, and MonTEC.

Since the contract was awarded, the Initiative has convened to identify barriers to growth in the bioscience industry and potential solutions to address those barriers. Common barriers included a lack of versatile facilities and available well-trained talent.

In order to better understand and address those barriers, in the coming weeks and months we will be working with economist Bryce Ward to conduct a State of the Bioscience industry report and exploring opportunities to expand purpose built facilities to support growth and expansion of local companies with the potential to create higher paying jobs.